Mounting shelves, a TV, or other large items that requires screws, bolts, or anchors should be regulated by the landlord and charged to the tenant. 

This is a bit more involved, but as you scale, it is something you should consider.In response to your second question, I would say "yes" to allowing pets.

I began shopping for a large construction loan to build a new car wash on the land. 

I won’t try to tell you what to do other than if there’s certain properties that just consume way more energy you might consider 1031ing them into slightly larger properties where you could get better economies of scale for your time and expenses.

Large deposits are nice, but very difficult to actually get access to escrow funds in the event of default.

We cover a large geographical area (nearly 400 miles) because there are usually only a few STR eligible properties for sale in any given city.  

Pretty,  as others have stated here, the permitting process through the City of Cape Coral has been hindered by their ability to scale up their staff to handle the massive demands for all permitting including new construction but also anything else that requires a permit, home improvements, sea walls, alternative sea walls, pools and more.From your post, I can see that you are frustrated, and I believe some of that is due to not understanding the steps and processes of new construction, including what must be done prior to submitting permits.

For the areas of interest (you are local so I'll say suburbs west of City Line Avenue) there are few and far between -and- have many investors sitting on large sums of cash to jump on anything that comes up (where I would be navigating a reverse 1031.) 

We have a lot of fix and flippers who are really looking to scale, and understand that access to capital is their limiting factor.

Best way to scale and build wealth is to 1031 exchange and I can help show you examples here in KC.